As if the game of love isn’t difficult enough to understand, the rules of attraction aren’t much clearer. We think we know why we’re physically attracted to one person over another, citing preferences for blue eyes over brown, or muscular body types over lanky ones. But there are many factors that propel us toward certain people and repel us from others. Our noses, as well as our eyes and ears, pick up on much more than we realize when we’re attracted to someone else. You may think it’s a hot body or a symmetrical face that draws you in, but these underlying elements could play a role as well.
The Color Red
Colors evoke different reactions in people. Blue is associated with calm, yellow makes people happy and social, and red ignites confidence and passion. In fact, a couple of studies have shown that wearing the color red automatically makes you more attractive to the opposite sex. A 2008 study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology showed that men find women who are wearing red or surrounded by a red border in photographs to be more attractive, even when compared to pictures of the same women in different colors. What’s more, the men said they’d spend more on a date with the women wearing red. Women also like a rosier hue: research published in a 2010 edition of the Journal of Experimental Psychology found that women thought men wearing red shirts or framed by the color red in a picture were more desirable and held a higher status in society.
Voice Pitch
The question of whether we’re altos or baritones is related to hormones, specifically estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone. The first two make voices higher and more feminine, while the latter produces deep, manly pitches. Because hormones have such a startling effect on whom we’re attracted to (attraction fluctuates significantly throughout a woman’s monthly cycle), it’s no surprise that hormone-level indicators like voice pitch have an effect, too.
Research has shown that women prefer men with low-pitched voices, especially as women near ovulation. One 2010 study at Aberdeen University found that, when they’re ovulating, women with the highest-pitched voices go for guys with the most masculine ones. And generally, men like ladies with high-pitched voices as well; a 2008 study published in the journal Perception showed that men rated higher-pitched voices as more attractive, and when female participants’ voices were made higher digitally, the men preferred those pitches to the women’s original voices.
